By
Obododimma Oha
Recently, I received a text I found irresistible. It was a WhatsApp share of a translation of a very interesting story of Alatise that was told by Baba Olowe. One sad thing was that the translator and the circumstances of the translation were not given. What a great omission that Oral Literature or folklore would seriously frown at? Anyway, the story was irresistible. I had to go ahead and blog on it. I have it as an appendix below.
We can get the following from the story:
(1) The hawk and the dove were both birds but could speak a human language that Alatise could understand. This is the kind of situation found only in folktales.
(2) The dove and the hawk had natural needs they needed to satisfy.
(3) Alatise was not just a refuge but a trickster and a hawk symbolically. He too was looking for a way of solving his own problems, using the dove and the hawk.
(4) Alatise made deals with both the dove and the hawk, which placed him under greater obligation.
It is clear from the story that the dove and the hawk had safety and physiological needs respectively and these needs were urgent and important. If we are uncaring, we would easily brush them aside. But we are not that heartless and unfeeling. The needs were natural and legitimate.
They also depended on Alatise in some ways for the satisfaction of these needs. In many African cultures, somebody like Alatise who protected the dove has enormous powers as the place of refuge. Alatise was under obligation to protect the dove that ran to him. Also, the hawk could not touch it without transgressing greatly against tradition. So, only a deal was the hope, provided the protector did not come up with another rational point.
But, while making a deal with the pursuer, Alatise knew that he had personal needs. His needs were also urgent and important. Thus, he had to use the problems of the dove and the hawk as solution to his own problems.
How were the problems his solution? That is the wisdom in the tale, interestingly. In normal thinking, we would argue that problems cannot become solutions!
But this is the main issue. Those who try to use others in any situation try to see how they could become answers to other problems the people they want to use don't know about. They are tools but should not know. They should think of their own problems. The helpers are clearly students of tricks doing a project to see how a hypothesis could turn out.
Alatise was making consultations, which were commendable. We would easily approve of him as somebody who weighs things, considers opinions, before taking an action. Which was wise in the eyes of single-track-minded thinker.
Were those consultations not attempts at working out his own hypothesis? Then, he sent his son to the market, to buy what he would use in further deceiving, a pigeon, a sister to Mr Dove. So, in deceiving the hawk with it, was he really helping the dove? No really, as we will see.
Another issue is that his decision is seen as being from his consultation of his wives! So, he should not have consulted them? The first and the second wives, we were told, had no urgent sexual needs, unlike the third who advised him to "to find out the proposition that would heal his impotence and go with that so she could have children." That is it. She needed this satisfaction from Alatise as a young wife. Person no be wood! So, she, too, had to USE a problem to solve her problem!
But one thing is clear: there is this subtle shift of blame to women. Alatise's ancestor, Adam, according to the Bible, did it. "The woman you gave me asked me to eat it. If I had refused, trouble." Similarly, if this thing turns bad, Alatise's wives should take the blame. But if it turns out successful, praises to Alatise!
Now, the coming troubles. The dove would eventually see the hawk in the bush and would be terrified. It would realise that there must have been some kind of trick. The hawk, too, could not be fooled forever. It would wake from deception and start thinking. Then, hypothesis would meet hypothesis and they would wrestle.
The hawk would be very angry and the dove would be very angry. This time around, they would make Alatise pay dearly. The impotence may be worse, the blindness permanent.
People like Alatise who use others hardly consider the consequences when the bubble bursts. Alatise may be lauded as a wise person but he was not in the case of his role in the conflict between the hawk and the dove. He deployed normal thinking, which could be problematic sometimes.
Appendix :
There was once a wealthy man named Alatise who had three wives and children. A few years after he married his third wife, he became blind and impotent.
Everyday, his family would lead him to the front of his house where he would sit and lounge all day, getting up only to relieve himself.
One fateful day, a dove flew straight at him and begged to go under his dress in order to hide from a massive hawk that wanted to devour it. Alatise asked the dove, "what are you going to do for me if I do you this favour?" The dove replied that it would heal a part of his body that had become nonfunctional. The man promptly hid the dove under his dress.
Shortly thereafter, the hawk came down to beg him that he should release the dove to it in order for it (the hawk) not to die of hunger. Alatise asked the hawk, "what are you going to do for me if I do you this favour?" The hawk also replied that it would heal a part of his body that had become nonfunctional. Alatise told the hawk to give him a few moments & return after a few hours.
Both replies caused Alatise a lot of worry on what to do so he called his three wives one after the other and requested their advice. The first and second wives, having consummated sexual relationships with concubines, dismissed the proposition outright and advised him to come to terms with his condition.
The third wife however told him to find out the proposition that would heal his impotence and go with that so she could have children.
So Alatise decided to think deeply. He went into the inner recesses of his mind and came up with the idea that he would gain from both sides
He called his son to go get some money from his safe, go to the market and buy him a pigeon that was as close to white as possible. The son did as he was instructed and brought the pigeon to his father
When the hawk came back, Alatise released the pigeon to it and the hawk flew away to devour it's lunch. Sometime later, the hawk came back and declared its intention to redeem its promise. The hawk slapped its wings on Alatise's face and he regained his sight. He thanked the hawk for its kindness and flew awa
Once the hawk was out of sight, Alatise called on the dove to come out and redeem its promise. The dove commenced some shifting around under Alatise's dress and he had an uplifting down under.
Alatise was overjoyed as he regained his sight and conjugal functions from the wisdom with which he handled the entire situation.
And that was the beginning of the saying "Alatise lo nmo atise ara e”.
It is only Alatise that can determine what is good for himself
(Translator anonymous)
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